


The Scientific Method

by Oryx_Gazella



Category: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (Short Film)
Genre: DHMIS, F/M, Padlock, i can say 'no one dies' if theyre already dead right, this ones significantly nicer than the last 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 16:13:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1161840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oryx_Gazella/pseuds/Oryx_Gazella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony's...incapacitated, and Paige wants to run an experiment before he gets the chance to wake up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Scientific Method

**Author's Note:**

> GHGHGHGh Ok so there's talk of blood and broken bones and i guess some people might find it a bit gross but lbr it's pretty tame for this fandom.  
> I honestly forget which puppets have which names I thought Manny was the red one? I don't actually know.  
> UM idk this ones a bit...cute...r??? Nothing's cute in this fandom this is probably as close to fluff as these two will get from me.  
> get ready for tony being written as the pretentious ass i think he is, cause i stepped up my game

                Paige dragged Tony’s body down the hall.  He was heavy when he was dead. He was also leaving a huge bloody mess in his wake.  She got to the stairs and stared down them; wrangling a corpse down a flight of stairs?  Not likely.  She yanked Tony by his limp arm to the top step, then let go, circling behind him.  Paige gave his body a firm kick, successfully getting him started on his loud, graceless journey to the first floor of the house.   She followed after him, daintily stepping around the blood that now splattered each stair. 

            She always appreciated how he looked dead; eyes softly closed, face relaxed and not pulled into a scowl or mocking grin.  She’d be seeing one or both of those expressions relatively soon, though, so best to admire him now, when a lapse in attention wouldn’t get her stabbed to death.

            She stared down at the body lying face-up on the floor, blood still sluggishly leaking from his multiple wounds.  How to dispose of his body today?  Paige thought of the possibilities.  Best not to be too hard on him, he _did_ take it relatively easy on her last time he won.  An idea sprang into her head.  They still had more experiments to run on the mechanics of their revivals, after all…

 

* * *

 

 

            They sent Manny into the house this time.  Not only were everyone’s various bills still getting sent there, but they had to keep smuggling necessities out, one at a time, and as quickly as possible.  Darting into the house was a huge gamble, and it was agreed that if they were gone for more than twenty minutes, there was a problem.  There was no telling what mood those two…things would be in.  Sometimes they weren’t even present, sometimes they were calm and civil, and sometimes they decided to mentally and physically torture one or all of them for hours. 

            But they couldn’t avoid the house completely; bills needed to be paid and valuables needed to be saved.  They’d have to try and stay there again soon, but they were all trying to put that off for as long as possible by staying in cheap motels until those funds grew thin.  Any method of saving money was encouraged, and there was almost certainly some frozen food or dry pasta left at the house.  Manny peeked into the windows from outside, the other two watching from behind the bushes at the sidewalk. 

            “All the lights are off…” He called, just loud enough for them to hear.  “They might be gone.”

            “Then hurry up and go in before they get back!”  Robin replied, terrified of Paige or Tony sneaking up behind them.

            Manny hesitantly approached the door, and slid a key into the lock, silently cursing every tiny click of the key’s teeth against the tumblers.  Honestly, he half wished the key wouldn’t even work; that those two monsters had changed the locks for some reason and there would be a real, physical excuse not to go to the house at all. 

            But the key turned faithfully, the lock clacking open far too loudly.  Manny exhaled nervously, and turned the doorknob, stepping inside the darkened front room.  The house was freezing cold, like all the heating had been cut for hours.  He didn’t turn any lights on; just because it looked like no one was home didn’t mean they weren’t just in another room or upstairs.  He crept carefully through the living room; he was almost to the kitchen without incident.   Seeing no one was in the kitchen, he proceeded inside, moving as slowly and silently toward the refrigerator. 

            He froze suddenly, staring into the dining room.  A fluffy pastel rainbow hung over a chair; Paige was sitting at the table, her back to him.  She turned her head slowly, the movement too smooth to be human, and locked her eyes with his.  His chest seized up, and neither of them moved for what felt like forever.  Paige’s face split into a wide predatory grin, and she raised a pitch black arm. 

            She wiggled her fingers, giving him a wave. 

            Her movement prompted his, and he started to breathe again, fast and shallow.  He reached to the side, grabbing the handle of the freezer door.  He trembled, unwilling and unable to take his eyes off her.  The freezer pulled open, but Manny was still watching Paige.

            His eyes flicked away for a second, glancing into the box to assess what he could take as quickly as possible.

            Manny’s breath caught in his throat again, and he closed the freezer door without a word.  He spun around, too horrified to care that he was turning his back to her.  A giggle bubbled up from the dining room, as he hastily marched out of the house wide-eyed and empty-handed.

            He left the house, letting the door slam behind him.

            “Why didn’t you-“ Harry started, but was cut off by Manny’s expression and a rapid shake of his head.  The three followed Manny as he hurried away, gathering that now wasn’t the best time to try and salvage anything from the house.

 

 

           

            Paige cackled as she watched the trio rush away. 

            “Not up yet, Tony?” She called, smiling to herself.  Predictably, there was no response. 

 

* * *

 

 

            Tony stirred.  The air was thin and his body felt awful.  He was contorted and stuffed somewhere.  He could feel that he wasn’t quite “alive” yet; several of his bones were still broken, and the thin air actually didn’t contain any oxygen at all.  Despite this, he didn’t feel any pain; he didn’t feel much of anything at all.  It was pitch black though his eyes were open once more. 

            He could tell he had been out for far too long; eight hours and twenty-four minutes.  What the hell had Paige done to keep him dead so long?  The waste of time was aggravating.  There weren’t any bonds on him, it was just a matter of getting his snapped limbs to cooperate and writhe out of…wherever he was. 

            Tony tried to shift his arm into a better position, but it was as if his skin had been glued to the surface of the too-small area he had been crammed into.  Paige certainly wasn’t about help him, so he was on his own.  He lied there, head touching the outside of his knee, and tried to shift around.  Thankfully, his legs weren’t stuck to the walls; probably because he still had pants on. 

            As he regained awareness and movement, he started to realize that the temperature of the air as well as his entire body was…exceedingly low.

            _Goddamn it she put him in the freezer._

            He tried to ascertain where the door was.  He didn’t put it past her to have sealed it closed, but it’d be good to know where to start.  He kicked out in front of his face, and the door flew open.

            Despite the fact that the house was dark, the small amount of light that _did_ flood in caused him to flinch.  Tony growled in annoyance and writhed around, trying to get at a good angle to get out of the freezer.  It quickly became apparent that awkwardly falling to the ground was unavoidable.  He was actually thankful that he couldn’t properly feel anything, because most of the skin on his forearm tore off as he pulled it from the freezer’s icy wall.

            Tony clutched the edge of the refrigerator, hoisting his body out of the tiny box.  He could see now that his fingertips were blackened with the dead tissue of frostbite; the skin that just tore off was probably about the same color.  Tony tumbled out of the freezer, crashing in a heap to the floor.  Now that him limbs had movement, he lied still as his bones started to rapidly knit back together, the shifting making audible clicks accompanied by an uncomfortably odd, but not exactly painful feeling.

            He groaned, irritated.  The house was barely any warmer than the freezer. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

            Paige woke up, but for what reason she didn’t know.  She peered at the digital clock on her dresser.

            “It’s 2:47 AM.  I don’t know why you even bother to keep that on your nightstand.”

            She jumped at the voice, but quickly calmed down once she realized there weren’t hands around her throat.  Paige smiled, propping herself up in bed by her elbows.  Her eyes began to focus, and she looked towards the source of the voice to see Tony’s dark figure pulling his coat on.

            “Well, it seems that the cold slows everything down; unless you were just napping in there for a while.”

            Tony threw a scathing glare over his shoulder.  “You couldn’t have come up with anything less time-consuming?”

            “Ohhh, you know I had no way of knowing how it’d work.  But now we both know.  Now what are you doing in my room, if you’re so angry with me?” 

            He wouldn’t be here to kill her; he was still technically dead.  She could tell by the torn skin peeking out of his sleeves and the blackened fingertips he quickly hid with gloves.  He couldn’t be killed again until his body fully mended itself, so starting a fight now would be…cheating.  If he really wanted to kill her here, there wasn’t much she could do about it, but even he would admit that it wouldn’t be any fun at all.  Besides, Tony was so impatient that, if he was here for revenge, he already would’ve woken her up with a sword pressing into her flesh.

            “Well, _someone_ turned off the heat in every room in the house.  Except here.  My body wasn’t healing in the frigid conditions elsewhere, and I really don’t feel like _waiting_ for the heat to start warming a room if it’s already on somewhere.”  He replied coldly, strapping his sword to his belt.  He must’ve grabbed the weapon from his room before coming here.

            “Don’t you find these discoveries interesting?!”  Paige cheered, clapping her hands together and interlocking her fingers excitedly. 

            Tony didn’t reply, instead moving a chair over to the radiator in Paige’s room.  He sat down, facing the wall with his arms crossed, resigning himself to wait here to warm up enough. 

            Fine.  Tony needed more time to cool off. 

            She watched him for a few moments; he could remain perfectly motionless if he wanted, just like he was doing so now.  She marveled at his ability to sit so still, not even seeming to breathe.  Even though it meant he was irritated, it was still fascinating.  Confident that he wasn’t planning to kill her back tonight, Paige lied back and snuggled into her bed.

             

* * *

 

 

            Paige woke again; she didn’t know how long it had been since she went back to sleep, but it was still dark.  This time, she didn’t let on that she was awake. 

            Tony was curled up in bed with her, under the comforter but over the sheet, head off her pillow.   He wasn’t touching her at all, aside from one hand lying almost undetectably on her hip.  She had no idea if he was sleeping or just lying completely motionlessly again; either way he didn’t intend for her to know he was there.  He was mostly just trying to leech her heat, she knew; it was likely he had started to _really_ live again, and the residual cold in his body now hurt.

            Still, he was too proud to ask her for help after she had killed him like that; having to come into her room to warm up was embarrassing enough for him.   Paige went back to sleep, sighing contentedly. 

            Predictably, when she woke up in the morning there was no sign he had been there. 

            The game was back on.


End file.
